'Travel safety officers'

Flying Claret · 29 Dec 2018

Hello, yesterday I was travelling on the Preston-Colne "East-lancs express" when on arrival at Blackburn a significant number of 'travel safety officers' boarded. All of these were male, wearing body cameras, and to be honest wouldn't have looked out of place refusing people entry to the area's nightclubs later in the evening. I was wondering:
What is the purpose of these-especially on the 5pm Preston-colne
What remit do they have? Are they supposed to engage with passengers or just stand throughout the train looking intimidating (as these did)
Do people think they are a good idea/way of supporting the Transport Police?
I'd be interested in people's thoughts, as a quick Google suggests they are recruiting more of these.
Thanks

RailUK Forums

DarloRich · 29 Dec 2018

They are essentially bouncers. I often see them on trains to football matches. They are a deterrent and a way to control low level disorder and anti social behaviour.

Flying Claret · 29 Dec 2018

DarloRich said:
They are essentially bouncers. I often see them on trains to football matches. They are a deterrent and a way to control low level disorder and anti social behaviour.

That was my impression too. I'd understand it more on trains with footy fans on (I'm one of them) but seemed more strange on a commuter/branch line service calling at the various metropolises of Rishton and Huncoat...

DarloRich · 29 Dec 2018

Flying Claret said:
That was my impression too. I'd understand it more on trains with footy fans on (I'm one of them) but seemed more strange on a commuter/branch line service calling at the various metropolises of Rishton and Huncoat...

They might just cover a load of routes during a shift and start somewhere convenient

rg177 · 29 Dec 2018

They're put on the afternoon Mid Cheshire service towards Manchester due to the large amount of schoolkids. Although the one on there was rather friendly and helping irritated passengers set to miss connections at Stockport (The bloke I was interviewing at Mobberley tells me that reliability isn't particularly stellar on this one).

On the other hand I've seen about 15 on a Saturday evening Tyne Valley service and when met with disorder their response seemed to be scream abusive language back at the offenders and fire up the situation even more. Although after some persuasion I do recall a large number of said offenders were booted off at Wylam.

TurbostarFan · 29 Dec 2018

Greater Anglia have "Enforcement Officers" present at staffed stations and occasionally onboard trains, the ones on the Norwich - Cambridge and Norwich - London Liverpool Street lines in particular.

Great Northern (a GTR brand) also have "Enforcement Officers" but they are seldom seen except onboard a train in the event of unforeseen disruption.

Starmill · 29 Dec 2018

Flying Claret said:
Are they supposed to engage with passengers or just stand throughout the train looking intimidating (as these did)

I have seen them frequently on Northern trains, and I've never seen them doing anything other than this.

On one occasion they caught the evening service from Newcastle to Chathill and back, so after Morpeth there were as many passengers as travel safe officers.

Mathew S · 29 Dec 2018

I see them frequently on Wigan - Manchester trains (and back); especially in the late evenings. The presence of an obviously uniformed staff member in the passenger area is a positive, and does seem to be a deterrent to low level anti-social behaviour such as shouting, swearing, smoking, etc.
That said, I too have never seen one of them actually do anything other than stand their like a lemon.

ChiefPlanner · 29 Dec 2018

GTR had a few on Midland services - only ever seen them mid afternoon when there are few issues (maybe some well educated school kids going back to Elstree or Radlett) -when you need them is late evening north of St Albans in my opinion.

There are other security staff at SAC late evening , handy people in my view. Southern and Southeastern have the handily named Land Sherrifs.

Clip · 29 Dec 2018

Ive seen a few about with my travels with Northern and do seem to be on odd services but hey people want a presence on their trains right?

Randomer · 29 Dec 2018

Cannot comment on why they were on that particular service bit they do seem useful for crowd control after events on Northern.

To be fair the railway bylaws actually give them much greater "powers" for lack of a better term in removing trouble makers using reasonable force or reporting by summons compared to a lot of security but whether they make use of them is another matter.

markindurham · 29 Dec 2018

I caught the Whitby - Middlesbrough service at about 4pm one day last September - full of schoolchildren, plus 2 of these 'safety officers'. It was pretty lively even with these 2 blokes on board - goodness knows what it might have been like if they weren't there...

bearhugger · 30 Dec 2018

markindurham said:
I caught the Whitby - Middlesbrough service at about 4pm one day last September - full of schoolchildren, plus 2 of these 'safety officers'. It was pretty lively even with these 2 blokes on board - goodness knows what it might have been like if they weren't there...

I've been on the Whitby - Middlesbrough school kids service both morning and afternoon quite a lot of times over the years now. Generally they are more quiet on the morning services, on the afternoon they are usually more noisy but their behaviour hasn't been anything that bad that I would consider it nessessary for the "Travel Safe Officers" attendance. The last train from Whitby on Saturday evenings, on the other hand, is when they are needed.

muz379 · 30 Dec 2018

It was I believe a franchise committent to establish a team of travel safety officers across all regions Northern operate . They are subcontracted staff working for STM . They do have some training which meets a BTP recognised accreditation scheme although I dont know too much of the details of this I know from speaking to some they also have to be vetted by BTP before being able to carry out the role .

They are supposed to be deployed according to intelligence from other front line staff like Guards, station staff and RPA's but will also be deployed according to expected issues so they used to be fairly regularly deployed on the Stalybridge to Huddersfield line on a Saturday or will be deployed to stations expecting high volume of football fans .

From speaking to many of them they do mostly come from a door supervisor/security background , much like every other job role there are some that try their best and I have seen help deal with situations on board and generally seem keen and willing to help passengers. There are some that have in my view created situations and escalated things when unnecessary to do so. The staff turnover for them does seem somewhat high compared to railway norms . Ive noticed as well that many of what I considered to be the "better ones" have applied for and gained jobs working directly for Northern .

Muenchener · 30 Dec 2018

From a perspective of personal anonymity as a safeguard from innocently being identified in footage; how long is the video, or whatever medium, retained for by these people?

pemma · 30 Dec 2018

Northern's Travel Safe Officers are BTP trained and Metrolink have them too. They are basically the equivalent of PCSOs for the railways.

On the Mid-Cheshire line they've been known to remove passengers from trains if so many cram on that the doors can't close.

Stigy · 30 Dec 2018

Muenchener said:
From a perspective of personal anonymity as a safeguard from innocently being identified in footage; how long is the video, or whatever medium, retained for by these people?

Companies have different policies, but as a rule it won’t be routinely recording. If you’re recorded for whatever reason, the footage will be saved on a server for 7-days then deleted automatically. If it’s required as evidence they will mark it to keep it for as long as necessary.

pemma · 30 Dec 2018

rg177 said:
They're put on the afternoon Mid Cheshire service towards Manchester due to the large amount of schoolkids. Although the one on there was rather friendly and helping irritated passengers set to miss connections at Stockport (The bloke I was interviewing at Mobberley tells me that reliability isn't particularly stellar on this one).

Did he look like a former England manager called Sven?

The 15:02 Chester-Manchester was a 4 car 150 until May, with the following working for the 4 car 150 set being a peak time service from Piccadilly to Buxton. When Northern added in the extra Buxton services in May but omitted the additional Mid-Cheshire ones it meant the doubled up working ceased and now if a 142 turns up the question is how many passengers are going to be left on the platform for an hour and how many minutes will be lost between Greenbank and Navigation Road with the extended dwell times. Even with a 150 it's badly overcrowded and train keeping is poor.

Stigy · 30 Dec 2018

TravelSafe Officers (TSOs) are employed by STM Security I believe. They are essentially security on trains. They're accredited under the Railway Safety Accreditation Scheme (RSAS). The Police Reform Act 2002 entrusts them with similar powers to that of a Police Officer in order to tackle certain low-level disorder. The powers RSAS staff have differ from TOC to TOC depending on what enforcement (if any) they want their officers to carry out. I have a somewhat intimate knowledge of RSAS and the different types of roles these officers carry out. TOCs do have their own staff, who tend to be vastly better trained and equipped than STM's equivalent (GTR companies have their Rail Enforcement Officers (REO) and SWR have Rail Community Officers (RCOs)). The calibre of the staff comes down to the cost unfortunately, and we all know what happens if a company pays peanuts. STM charge say £18 an hour for each officer (which equates to about £10 an hour to the TSO in terms of their rate). With this, the TOC passes all training costs, pension payments and uniform costs to STM, of course. If a TOC however employ their own RSAS staff, they pay them on a par what STM charge (about £17 an hour or £30k a year ish) and have to pay for everything else too. It's often a franchise commitment to have these staff, however, irrespective of the quality of staff, it makes better business sense to have an agency cover this obligation, rather than have their own staff.

Bertie the bus · 30 Dec 2018

The last time I saw any of these they boarded a train at Sowerby Bridge at lunchtime, messed with their phones the whole time and alighted at New Pudsey where they proceeded to take selfies and photos of the station name signs. I felt much safer.

Muenchener · 30 Dec 2018

Stigy said:
Companies have different policies, but as a rule it won’t be routinely recording. If you’re recorded for whatever reason, the footage will be saved on a server for 7-days then deleted automatically. If it’s required as evidence they will mark it to keep it for as long as necessary.

Thanks. Not that I'm a paranoid Ronnie Biggs type and always looking over my shoulder but... It seems 1984 is getting ever closer... it sometimes leaves me a little uncomfortable as to what has been retained out there even if only for seven days.

Darandio · 30 Dec 2018

Muenchener said:
Thanks. Not that I'm a paranoid Ronnie Biggs type and always looking over my shoulder but... It seems 1984 is getting ever closer... it sometimes leaves me a little uncomfortable as to what has been retained out there even if only for seven days.

You are put in public and using public transport, i'm not entirely sure what you are expecting. I could understand discomfort if you were being watched in your own home however.

Muenchener · 30 Dec 2018

Darandio said:
You are put in public and using public transport, i'm not entirely sure what you are expecting. I could understand discomfort if you were being watched in your own home however.

Not wishing to hijack the thread and drift off topic, too far, it's maybe a debate for elsewhere... 8-)

tsr · 30 Dec 2018

MPotter said:
Great Northern also have "Enforcement Officers" but they are seldom seen except onboard a train in the event of unforeseen disruption.

ChiefPlanner said:
GTR had a few on Midland services - only ever seen them mid afternoon when there are few issues (maybe some well educated school kids going back to Elstree or Radlett) -when you need them is late evening north of St Albans in my opinion.

There are other security staff at SAC late evening , handy people in my view. Southern and Southeastern have the handily named Land Sherrifs.

The GTR Rail Enforcement Officers cover all 4 GTR brands from various bases, the only issue being that there are so few of them for an absolutely vast network. This means they can basically cover a couple of areas at a time, especially if you have to use them all up in one go - for example, if you have to get 4 of them to help with an enforcement block or 8 for a major event. If you strike gold and they happen to be on your train it’s brilliant, but if they’re at Ashford and you’re at Watford or Victoria, no chance!

Land Sheriffs, likewise - although they’re more closely aligned with providing “heavyweight” security and they also tend to be trained to deal with a wider range of issues out on the track or lineside, such as stranded trains, animals on the line and level crossing failures. Last time I tried to deploy them, they were three counties away...

philthetube · 30 Dec 2018

Bertie the bus said:
The last time I saw any of these they boarded a train at Sowerby Bridge at lunchtime, messed with their phones the whole time and alighted at New Pudsey where they proceeded to take selfies and photos of the station name signs. I felt much safer.

It is in the nature of the job that they will often be on trains with nothing to do, quite possible that they were on that train because of intelligence or in order to be at sowerby bridge for a reason later in the day.

Stigy · 30 Dec 2018

tsr said:
The GTR Rail Enforcement Officers cover all 4 GTR brands from various bases, the only issue being that there are so few of them for an absolutely vast network. This means they can basically cover a couple of areas at a time, especially if you have to use them all up in one go - for example, if you have to get 4 of them to help with an enforcement block or 8 for a major event. If you strike gold and they happen to be on your train it’s brilliant, but if they’re at Ashford and you’re at Watford or Victoria, no chance!

The REOs will span all GTR TOCs, but they're employed by their former TOC (Southern or Southeastern for example), so there's quite a few about now I guess? And as such will patrol their individual TOC area (so Southern would go as far as Brighton, whereas SET obviously wouldn't?). Unlike like the RCOs who at present only work on the SWR network and not across all FirstGroup TOCs (there's only 30 for the whole network give or take).

Stigy · 30 Dec 2018

philthetube said:
It is in the nature of the job that they will often be on trains with nothing to do, quite possible that they were on that train because of intelligence or in order to be at sowerby bridge for a reason later in the day.

This is true, but it's not a good image to project as they should be walking through said trains once they board...Unless their brief is not to be a high visibility deterrent.

tsr · 30 Dec 2018

Stigy said:
The REOs will span all GTR TOCs, but they're employed by their former TOC (Southern or Southeastern for example), so there's quite a few about now I guess? And as such will patrol their individual TOC area (so Southern would go as far as Brighton, whereas SET obviously wouldn't?). Unlike like the RCOs who at present only work on the SWR network and not across all FirstGroup TOCs (there's only 30 for the whole network give or take).

GTR is Southern / Gatwick Express / TL / GN and has nothing to do with Southeastern from a management perspective. And all the GTR REOs are simply employed just by GTR, since nobody is employed just by one of the individual constituent brands any more. The REO remit and branding was actually harmonised a year or two ago so that the RNOs (Rail Neighbourhood Officers) on Southern / GX and the in-house security on the TL / GN side became one and the same grade.

Southeastern are not GTR, but do employ their own enforcement officers, who are much more widespread and visible than those on GTR (and generally much more so than any of the other TOCs).

Both GTR and Southeastern have accreditation to operate on each other’s networks, and GTR in particular are also licenced for a number of other TOCs as well, regardless of the ownership of the companies concerned. This is particularly useful at stations such as London Bridge, Victoria, Tonbridge, Clapham Junction etc., where trying to enforce Byelaws on a company-by-company basis would be hopeless.

Stigy · 30 Dec 2018

tsr said:
GTR is Southern / Gatwick Express / TL / GN and has nothing to do with Southeastern from a management perspective. And all the GTR REOs are simply employed just by GTR, since nobody is employed just by one of the individual constituent brands any more. The REO remit and branding was actually harmonised a year or two ago so that the RNOs (Rail Neighbourhood Officers) on Southern / GX and the in-house security on the TL / GN side became one and the same grade.

Southeastern are not GTR, but do employ their own enforcement officers, who are much more widespread and visible than those on GTR (and generally much more so than any of the other TOCs).

Both GTR and Southeastern have accreditation to operate on each other’s networks, and GTR in particular are also licenced for a number of other TOCs as well, regardless of the ownership of the companies concerned. This is particularly useful at stations such as London Bridge, Victoria, Tonbridge, Clapham Junction etc., where trying to enforce Byelaws on a company-by-company basis would be hopeless.

Thanks for the explanation, I wasn’t aware of this. Southeastern were part of GTR weren’t they? Hence why RNOs changed to REOs? (To be consistent).

TurbostarFan · 30 Dec 2018

Stigy said:
Thanks for the explanation, I wasn’t aware of this. Southeastern were part of GTR weren’t they? Hence why RNOs changed to REOs? (To be consistent).

I'm pretty sure that actually they weren't.

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